Carl Etnier

World population approaches 7 billion

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Bill Ryerson of the Population Media Center in Shelburne, Vermont spoke about how to think about population and population control as the world passes seven billion souls in October. His prescription for reducing world population: provide women everywhere with good health care, including contraception. The Population Media Center also produces soap operas and other media that include women who go to school or take other paths than getting married and having kids while a teenager. Ryerson said Vermont could feel dramatic effects of overpopulation, with environmental refugees streaming here from drought-stricken parts of the country.

A new experiment in open-source citizenship

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Whether Hartley’s unusual project will ultimately rise above the level of spectacle (or taxpayer boondoggle) remains to be seen…But at its best, by encouraging would-be activists to act as though they have the power to shape an imaginary community, such a project can show people that they can reshape their own real societies — simply by acting out, in sufficient numbers, the behavior of those whose actions matter. Activists in Greece, in Spain, on Wall Street, and throughout the Arab world have already discovered this hidden truth, sometimes at tremendous sacrifice.

Occupy Wall Street: The most important thing in the world now

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We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.

The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society—while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.

The big picture view from Totnes

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Totnes is a tiny town in a tiny, but extremely fortunate, bubble.Mythic home of Transition and Rob Hopkins, conjoined (for some, uncomfortably so) with Dartington and Schumacher College, we’re connected to the wider world in a way that few rural towns could ever hope to be.

Last night, the bubble burst.

ODAC Newsletter – Oct 7

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Deepening political anxiety about the economic crisis went public this week as Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England declared that “this is the most serious financial crisis at least since the 1930s, if not ever.” and David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party Conference admitted that “the threat to the world economy – and to Britain – is as serious today as it was in 2008 when world recession loomed.”

Putting the lawn back, eating more industrial food and other adventures from the counterintuitive edge of sustainability

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I use these two examples because I think they are good ways to describe the range of possible places that reducing your impact can take you. Adapting-in-Place, Rioting for Austerity, making your life more resilient and reducing your consumption aren’t one-size-fits-all activities, and determining what is truly sustainable is never going to involve plugging in formulas. There are some generalities that one can articulate, and some broad principles we can apply, but the answer isn’t simple.

Giving Robert Socolow a Wedgie (so to speak)

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In 2004, Steve Pacala and Robert Socolow published a paper in Science about climate mitigation which introduced the concept of ‘stabilisation wedges’. ….It was a timely and seminal approach. But it strikes me that, given that their underpinning assumptions neglect a wider perspective in term of the ‘perfect storm’ of other challenges that increasingly keep climate change company in the “reasons-to-lie-awake-at-night” charts (powerfully described by Jeremy Rifkin recently), that it is in desperate need of a profound overhaul, rather than having been “reaffirmed” by the intervening 7 years.

Zalmay Khalilzad’s not-so-excellent Afghan oil adventure

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The private investment firm of Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and one of the most powerful diplomats in the George W. Bush Administration, is upset that a client has lost an oil deal in the country. Khalilzad’s son, Alexander Benard, is on the attack in Washington, in particular against the Pentagon, which he says acted against U.S. interests by not advising the Afghan government to favor Western companies in the deal.